


can you take me with you?

by lutzaussi



Series: where are you going? [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Parent(s), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 10:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12679629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lutzaussi/pseuds/lutzaussi
Summary: Iruka loses his parents; Konohagakure loses Iruka.





	can you take me with you?

The bag is packed haphazardly, obviously the work of a child, but with no childish things inside of it. Pictures, removed from their frames and tossed into a pile, line the bottom. Then clothes, for any sort of weather or temperature, and atop those some food--wrapped but smushed onigiri, jerky, and a handful of nearly-ripe persimmons.

It took Iruka all of fifteen minutes to pack it. He pulled the pack on and took the tanto that his parents had given him for his admittance into the Academy, tucked it into his belt where it was easily accessible, should he need it.

He didn’t look back as he pulled his shoes on and left the house. He did sniffle back the tears that had been flowing on and off since the day before, since he last saw his parents, and he locked the front door of their house behind him.

-

The aftermath of the Kyuubi’s rampage would take to sift through. Once Hiruzen was brought back as Hokage the work began in earnest; those who died were identified and given proper burials, the care of Naruto was given to the Orphanage, and those who were still left were sent out on missions to present a strong front to the rest of the shinobi nations, while the civilian efforts were focused on rebuilding Konoha.

Despite the carnage, the death, the work went easily. There had been no major roadblocks, nothing that seemed to be a problem, a week after the attack and sacrifice of the Fourth Hokage.

Until the day Satoru Hiyoko was let into the Hokage’s office, her face pinched with worry. “Hokage-sama,” she bowed deeply, “one of my students hasn’t shown up for class in the past three weeks; I believe his parents were killed while fighting against the Kyuubi.”

“Could he have gone to stay with other family members, or taken time to recover from his loss?” Hiruzen’s voice was not bored, per se, but he definitely had more important things on his mind than a missing pre-genin.

“No, he has no other family. I stopped by his family house but it was closed up, empty. I don’t know where else he could be,” she said. Desperation, maybe, colored her voice.

“What is the child’s name?” Hiruzen asked, his interest finally piqued.

“Iruka, Umino Iruka.”

-

At first Iruka wandered aimlessly away from Konoha, just to get away. The first few days he felt as if he was not really living, as if the world had died around him and he was a ghost moving through the ashes.

A week or so away from Konoha he collapsed and allowed himself to cry, to grieve as he hadn’t while in his home. The ground was damp from days of rain, thunderstorms, so he curled up next to a tree, between two roots where there is a layer of leaves covering a triangle of dry ground, and sobbed until he fell asleep. Waking up was terrifying, in the middle of the woods with nobody about.

He hadn’t talked in four days. He’d barely eaten. At least he had slept.

-

Hiruzen sent out a couple of free Anbu to track down Iruka, but had had no luck. The boy wasn’t to be found in the city limits of Konoha, nor within a day’s walk out of the southern gate. Normally he would leave the disappearance of a child to the Uchiha, but Umino Iruka was different. He had been present when the Umino family had moved to Konoha and received their citizenship, and he had always had something of a soft spot for Iruka. The boy was quiet and studious, very unlike Hiruzen’s own son.

“Put together a pair of trackers and see if he can be found. If it’s longer than three days, bring them back,” he said to the Anbu standing at his right hand, a young man wearing a cat mask. The mask bobbed in a nod, and the Anbu flickered away.

Hiruzen turned his attention back to the wounded chuunin in front of him, an older man named Daiki who was the only person near Umino Ikkaku and Umino Kohari during their futile battle against the Kyuubi. Daiki scratched near the cast that encased his left leg, and turned his attention to Hiruzen when the older man spoke.

“Daiki-san, I have been told that you saw Iruka-kun on the battlefield during the attack of the Kyuubi,” the man nodded, “Was he removed from the area? And by whom?”

“Hyuuga Ami was the one to get him out of the Kyuubi’s range; I don’t know if she took him home, but she did return to assist us.”

“And where is Hyuuga Ami now?” Hiruzen asked. Several Hyuuga died in the attack, but there were so many he couldn’t remember all of the names.

“She died on the battlefield, Hokage-sama.”

-

Iruka didn’t notice the time passing. It felt like blinks, he’d be aware of the day of the week, and then suddenly it would be a week and a half later. He thought it to be a month or so after the Kyuubi, after his parents--

He wasn’t sure.

What he was sure of was the old sheep or goat track that he was following. After he’d gotten away from Konoha and cleared his head a little, his mind turned to his destination.

He didn’t know the name of the town, or where exactly it was located, but he knew that he had grown up there for the first three years of his life. Iruka had never known why they left the town, which in his memories was an idyll, tucked into the forest next to a riverbank. His parents had never volunteered that information, had stopped talking about the town completely once they had settled in Konoha.

But Iruka knew that it existed, and he wanted to find it, to return to what had been his home, at one time.

-

The pair of trackers turned up nothing. Hiruzen didn’t know what he expected; it had been over a month since anyone had seen Iruka, a month that had been fraught with unseasonably rainy weather and other conditions not conducive to tracking a person.

Hiruzen understood Satoru-sensei’s desperation.

-

He didn’t know what day it was. He knew he was on the brink of starvation and every step felt like it took all of his energy, until he couldn’t walk anymore and he could move anymore and so he fell, right where he had been standing.

_ Maybe this is my end,  _ Umino Iruka thought, at the age of ten. He wanted to see his parents again.

-

Maybe Umino Iruka had fled the village; more likely he had snuck back to the battlefield and had accidentally been killed during the Kyuubi’s attack, and they had just not found his body. That was what Hiruzen told himself, and slowly it was what he came to believe.

He missed the kid, but Konoha needed a leader, so he couldn’t be focused on what might have happened any longer. Once the trackers were back and everyone briefed, he had Umino Iruka’s files moved to the cabinets that held the files of other people missing in action, or presumed dead. He hoped that one day he would be able to move the files back to their proper place, but doubted it.

-

Iruka woke up.

A woman was kneeling next to him, a fire crackling under her hands and the smell of rice gruel wafting from her. Was he dead? He expected he would see his parents, if that was the case. And that it wouldn’t smell of rice gruel.

The woman’s eyes flitted to him, and she exhaled. “You need water; drink it slowly, you won’t get sick,” she turned away and turned back, held him up with one arm and pressed a shallow bowl full of water to his lips.

Part of him wanted to refuse, to keep his lips sealed so he could die and see his parents, be with them forever. But his lips opened and water slowly trickled into his mouth. Iruka had to remember not to gag, to swallow and appreciate the coolness.

The woman coaxed him into taking two more dishes, just as slowly as the first. Iruka felt over-full by the end, bloated and nauseous. The woman tucked a blanket over him, and for some reason there was worry on her face as she looked him over.

“You almost died,” she said, “What in the world were you doing out there?”

He didn’t answer; he was asleep.

-

“Recovery will take a while,” the woman said when he woke up again. He couldn’t tell what time it was, but time had become meaningless anyway.

“Hnt!” he said in reply. Over a month of not speaking, severely dehydrated, of course he couldn’t speak. He shook his head vigorously, instead.

“No? You don’t want to recover?” the woman asked. Her hair fell over her shoulders as she leaned forward, inky black against the sky blue of her yukata. Her voice was almost said as she asked, “Why would you not want to recover? To live? You are so young, yet.”

Iruka did not even attempt to speak, but found himself crying as he had when he had stopped under the tree. Everything felt too near, still.

-

Despite his mind not wanting to continue, Iruka’s body made sure he survived. He drank water when it was given to him, ate the small portions of okayu that the woman gave to him, and slept when he wasn’t doing those two things.

He would guess that it was two weeks after he was saved by the woman when she woke him up, gave him water and food, and prevented him from going back to sleep after he was finished.

“You won’t survive on food and sleep alone,” she said, and hefted him up in her arms as if he was nothing more than an unruly cat. He found himself inspecting his surroundings as they walked out of the house, a sprawling but somewhat dilapidated structure, and into the sunlight.

There was a chill, and a light sprinkling of snow and frost over the ground, hidden in the shadows of trees and bushes. The woman set him down on the porch, so he could lean against one of the support columns, and went to get a blanket to wrap around him.

“There,” she said, once he was wrapped and positioned in the sun. A small, sad smile was on her lips. “You already look better.”

-

Sitting outside became regular, and before long Iruka could shakily walk himself out of the house. With a blanket to ward off the chill, he would sit and spend hours absorbed in thought. Maybe he was getting better. Maybe he would never get better

-

“What is your name?” the woman asked him while making rice gruel. She did not ask him to help, so he watched her.

“Iruka,” he said. His voice rasped and hurt, and he knew he needed to talk more to make that stop, but there was little he wanted to say.

She smiled at that, at the progress they had made. “I am Sumire.”

With something like a cringe, Iruka viscerally realized that Sumire was a person separate from him. Why did she spend so much time helping him recover? Did she not have anything else to do? Iruka suddenly found he had many questions he wanted to ask her, but he stayed silent.

-

The next time he spoke, he did so unprompted, while Sumire was slicing green onions to go in miso.

“My parents,” he said, and despite how his throat hurt with all the words, he kept speaking, “they died. I left Konoha because I wanted to go home, where we used to live, but I don’t know where that is and I was stupid, I never should have left, I should have stayed but now I’m alone and there’s not even anyone in Konoha for me.”

She merely looked at him, no judgement on her face, but a little worry. “It was not stupid,” she finally said after a moment, and she reached up to wipe Iruka’s cheeks. Tears he wasn’t aware of were still leaking from his eyes, and he scrubbed a hand across his face when she took her hands away. “You needed distance.”

Distance. That--that sounds right. He wasn’t sure, though.

“But,” she said, and she took his hands in hers like they were sharing a secret. “You are not alone. You are with me.”

-

Winter passed. The time, which had once flown by in sudden leaps or dragged on in excruciating minutes, began to flow normally for Iruka again. He walked more, around the house and outside when the snow wasn’t too thick. The cold felt good, felt as if it cleared his mind.

He came in from a walk, shaking a thin layer of snow from his head and shoulders, and Sumire was there with a warm blanket to wrap around him and grilled fish with soup to feed him. Iruka had to pause to blink back tears; it was that she reminded him of his parents, but it was also that he felt a debt of gratitude toward her.

“Have you ever cared for a garden, or animals?” Sumire said as they ate.

Iruka shook his head.

“Well, I can always teach you,” Sumire said, “if you wish to stay.”

Iruka thought on his plans, on going to a town he didn’t know the name of that had been his home years before.

“I,” he says, “would like to stay, if you will let me.”


End file.
